Development of an input-output based analytic hierarchy process model for disaster vulnerability assessment in Vietnam in the implementation of a bioethanol policy

• Main Author: Nguyen, Hoa Thia
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2014
• Subjects: Feedstock; Biomass energy—Government policy—Vietnam; Biomass energy—Climatic factors—Vietnam
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_masteral/6830
• Institution: De La Salle University

In 2007, the Vietnamese Government issued the biofuel policy which requires 5% of gasoline to be replaced by bioethanol by 2025. Under this policy, sugarcane and cassava have been identified to be the main feedstocks for bioethanol production in Vietnam. These feedstocks are dependent on the agricultural sector whose productivity relies heavily on natural conditions. Meanwhile, the onset of climate change induces natural disasters such as storms and floods and these are expected to occur more frequently in the country in the coming years. These events threaten agricultural production systems and will affect the feedstock production for bioethanol. Furthermore, the economic sectors of a country are interdependent with each other, thus disasters which directly impact the agricultural sector will affect the entire economy of any country. Knowing the interdependent relationship among various sectors can help in developing policies to minimize the over-all effect of disasters on the country’s economy. An inoperability input-output model (IIM) is developed to assess the vulnerability of the Vietnamese economy as a result of the increased interdependence between the agricultural sector and other production sectors resulting from the mandated biofuel policy. The vulnerability criteria which include components such as economic loss, inoperability and average propagation length (APL) built on the foundations of input-output analysis (IOA) are utilized to evaluate the impact of different forms of disasters. By using a demand-reduction IIM approach, we can analyze the impact on the economy when the output of cassava and sugarcane for bioethanol production are reduced due to flood, storm and pest infestation. The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is applied to integrate these vulnerability components for prioritizing economic sectors. The aggregation of the components is based on the preferences elicited from stakeholders. The results of AHP use for the final ranking of economic sectors in all case studies considered indicate that the cassava, sugarcane and other manufacturing sectors are the key sectors which are most affected once a disaster event occurs in the consideration of the bioethanol policy implementation. Finally, sensitivity analysis of several bioethanol substitution blends is implemented to show how different bioethanol policies affect Vietnam’s economy.